While cities such as Mariupol were flattened, details of war crimes have emerged against civilians in Bucha, near Kyiv, and have led to an independent report that accused Russia itself of state-orchestrated incitement to genocide. Beyond seizing a territorial corridor to Crimea, Russia's bloody, unprovoked war has been a disaster for itself and the country it was unleashed on. So far, it has achieved little more than exposing the brutality and inadequacy of the Russian military. President Putin warned in December that the war "could be a lengthy process", but then added later that Russia's goal was "not to spin the flywheel of military conflict", but to end it. A war of attrition is now taking place along an active front line of 850km (530 miles) and Russian victories are small and rare. What was meant to be a quick operation is now a protracted war that Western leaders are determined Ukraine should win.
- The war in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea.
- The Russians made some inroads into Ukrainian territory, especially in the south, where they have laid siege to Mariupol and taken Kherson and Melitopol.
- Graft in Russia is less a bug in its political system than a feature; one way the Kremlin maintains the loyalty of its elite is by allowing them to profit off of government activity.
- When I think about the conflict, I feel anxious, sad, and frustrated.
He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources". Phillips P OBrien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, wrote in an analysis piece that the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House could see the US "neuter" the Western military alliance. A prominent war expert has warned the US is on the verge of diminishing its support for or even withdrawing from NATO - and this could have catastrophic consequences for Europe. But ordinary Russians, many of whom get their information from state-controlled television which repeats many of the Kremlin's lines, are expected to start noticing differences to their lives soon. On Sunday evening, when sanctions against Russian central bank reserves were announced, you could still use an app to order a dollar for up to 140 roubles, and a euro for up to 150. At the start of 2022 one dollar traded for about 75 roubles and a euro for 80.
What has the war meant for ordinary Ukrainians?
Similarly, turning the antiwar protests into a full-blown influential movement is a very tall order. There have also been antiwar rallies in dozens of Russian cities. How many have participated in these rallies is hard to say, but the human rights group OVD-Info estimates that over 15,000 Russians have been arrested at the events since the war began. Airstrikes and shells have hit the maternity hospital, the fire department, homes, a church, a field outside a school. For the estimated hundreds of thousands who remain, there is quite simply nowhere to go. Food is running out, and the Russians have stopped humanitarian attempts to bring it in.
The next day, Russia pledged to decrease its use of force in Ukraine’s north as a sign of its commitment to the talks. A rising Asian democracy that has violently clashed with China in the very recent past, it has good reasons to present itself as an American partner in the defense of freedom. Yet India also depends heavily on Russian-made weapons for its own defense and hopes to use its relationship with Russia to limit the Moscow-Beijing partnership. It’s also worth noting that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has strong autocratic inclinations.
big questions about Russia’s war in Ukraine, answered
Russian military convoys have crossed from Belarus into Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region, and from Russia into the Sumy region, which is also in the north, Ukraine's border guard service (DPSU) said. He urged Ukrainian soldiers in the combat zone to lay down their weapons and go home, but said clashes were inevitable and "only a question of time". Russia did not want to occupy Ukraine, he said, but would demilitarise and "de-Nazify" the country. Russia has begun a large-scale military attack on Ukraine, its southern neighbour, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- The Covid lockdown, which saw fights breaking out in queues at supermarkets and garages, was a glimpse of how trouble can spark during times of nationwide panic.
- Even weakened, Russia remains capable of inflicting heavy damage upon others.
- After an uneasy peace with Ukraine, Moscow has sent forces into the Baltics, clashing with British troops based there to protect Nato’s eastern flank.
- Excluding such data from climate models makes them less accurate, and the problem will get worse over time, a new study warns.
- Convoys have also entered the eastern Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and moved into the Kherson region from Crimea - a territory that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Meanwhile, Moscow has claimed its forces have taken control of the village of Tabaivka in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region. Images on social media have shown long queues forming at ATMs and money exchanges around the country in recent days, with people worried their bank cards may stop working or that limits will be placed on the amount of cash they can withdraw. After the forum had ended, I made a visit to Kyiv that coincided with a Russian missile-and-drone barrage that heralded the start of Putin’s extensive campaign on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. People I met in the park wondered whether the statue had been the intended target, or whether the missile had been meant to hit a nearby government installation, and been downed by an air-defense missile?
Whether people would be flocking into recruitment offices is open to question. According to a 2022 YouGov poll, only one in five Britons would volunteer for service in the event of an invasion. Britain has also allowed ammunition supplies to dwindle to “dangerously low levels,” according to a Parliamentary Defence Committee report. Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of the British Joint Forces Command, told the committee that he doubted there were “sufficient munitions to sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than about a week”.
- Ukraine revealed at the end of 2022 that 10-13,000 of its soldiers had been killed since the start of the war.
- As current levels are eminently insufficient, procurement practices and defence industry production capacity must be adapted, and stocks augmented quickly.
- The fate of Ukraine has enormous implications for the rest of the continent, the health of the global economy and even America’s place in the world.
- This invasion did, after all, start with him launching an invasion that seemed bound to hurt Russia in the long run.
- More than 14,000 Ukrainians have died since 2014 in fighting in the Donbas.
It took about 20 years for these predictions to be proven right. In late 2013, Ukrainians took to the streets to protest the authoritarian and pro-Russian tilt of incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych, forcing his resignation on February 22, 2014. Five days later, the Russian military swiftly seized control of Crimea and declared it Russian territory, a brazenly illegal move that a majority of Crimeans nonetheless seemed to welcome. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-happens-if-ukraine-falls.html -Russia protests in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine gave way to a violent rebellion — one stoked and armed by the Kremlin, and backed by disguised Russian troops. In mid-March, Aleksei Miniailo, a former social entrepreneur and current opposition politician, oversaw another telephone survey with the aim of trying to capture the effects of fear and propaganda on survey data. And that figure came from among those who agreed to participate at all; Miniailo suspected that the polls were not capturing a majority of the real antiwar sentiment, whatever its size.
The Kremlin has not made any attempt to assuage these fears, but has instead amplified them via direct menaces, propaganda and intimidation levers. Latest examples include curtailing gas supplies for political reasons, violating the airspace of a NATO country, threatening Lithuania, and using economic blackmail against Collective Security Treaty Organization member, Kazakhstan. ” — showed that there is little enthusiasm for a “real,” large-scale war among members of Russia’s modern, urban society (the country’s military operations in Syria and eastern Ukraine in recent years were not seen as real wars). That said, it’s possible to overstate the degree to which China has taken the Russian side. Beijing has a strong stated commitment to state sovereignty — the bedrock of its position on Taiwan is that the island is actually Chinese territory — which makes a full-throated backing of the invasion ideologically awkward. There’s a notable amount of debate among Chinese policy experts and in the public, with some analysts publicly advocating that Beijing adopt a more neutral line on the conflict.
- According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 3.8 million Ukrainians fled the country between February 24 and March 27.
- There is more America can do, particularly when it comes to fulfilling Ukrainian requests for new fighter jets.
- Why Russians do not protest is perhaps better explained by Russian history and not opinion polls.
- “If you are talking about mass mobilisation to defend the homeland, that is hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
- "There are no dollars, no roubles - nothing! Well, there are roubles but I am not interested in them," said Anton (name changed), who is in his late 20s and was queuing at an ATM in Moscow.
- Sanctions have targeted banks, oil refineries, military and luxury product exports as well as members of the Russian regime and oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin.